"Post No. 670"

After reading through my copy of The Marvel Vault: A Museum In A Book, I noticed there was certain pieces of memorabilia that weren't reproduced (or I merely looked over them?), so, anyhoo, I thought it might be interesting to dig out some of my own knick-knacks I've saved over the years as some are almost as old as Marvel Comics itself (well, the Silver-Age Marvel, at least), and many younger collectors probably have never seen them.

(Just click on to any of the following pics and they "should" show a larger image.)

Now...if I've just downloaded these photos in the correct order...The first on at the top should be the instruction sheet for the mid-1960's "Incredible Hulk" plastic model, produced by Aurora. I thought this one from the three produced at that time was the most interesting as I definately know it's Neal Adams artwork. The other two models that were produced were "The Amazing Spider-man", and "Captain America". Cap's artwork could may not have been by Jack Kirby. It looks like Kirby, but I'm not sure. I'll reproduce it in some future blog post for you to see for yourself (as I plan on this not being the only such post where I'll show memorabilia from time-to-time).

The second photo down should be of the lable that adorned gum ball machines in the mid-60's advertising that the contents of said machine contained "Marvel Mini-Comics". These small, thick booklets with various colored covers and B&W pages, had stories of different Marvel characters: Spider-man, The Hulk, Captain America, Sgt. Fury, Thor & Millie the Model. I think one time I noticed that you'd either have to have 24 or 36 of them to have all of the color cover variations. One may have seen some of these "sometime", but the lable for the machine is pretty rare.

Next up (or, "down" I should say), are Marvel "No Prizes", which were the gag award they gave out for those who could pull their a$$ out of a pinch by explaining away some mistake they made in a sensible way. The joke being, it was "NO" prize, but just an empty envelope. Their fans treasured them just the same and considered it an honor to receive one. Here we have two variations; the one with The Hulk is the original from the 1960's, and the one with "Spider-man" a later version printed in the 1980's.

Next, the wrapper for the "Marvel Gum Cards" from the latter 60's. Each pack of these had five cards and a sticker and, of course, a piece of gum. I actually had one of the boxes they all came in complete one time; sure wish I did now as it's scarcer than even the wrapper.

And on to variations of Marvel Comics company envelopes. Here we see some different versions with the original "Hulk" logo, then one with "Spider-man" in his original costume, and finally one in the "black-Venon" version. The stationary had matching or similiar designs as well.

"Marvel Reply Post Cards" such as these were usually in blue and signed "Stan & Co.", "The Marvel Gang", or some such and usually (probably) done by the secretary, although you'll see that one later one here pictured was signed by Bill Mantlo(which pretty well dates it as 1980's). The others are mostly 1960's. Marvel also sent out a typed post card which told you what number and title of one of their comics your letter would appear in (if if was printed). The one I have of this is in "canary yellow".

Next is a "Marvel Subscription Copy Backing Board", which they would stick behind your comic in a clear envelope when it was mailed. There's another variation of this with, I believe, "Wolverine".

And finally, here's a couple of the 1988 "Marvel Mini Comics" which were in full color. The one of Spider-man reprints the stories from "Amazing Spider-man #1", and the X-Men one reprints #53 (first published Barry Smith art by Marvel). The back covers had a coupon for a dollar off a subscription to a Marvel comic of your choice.

Hope everyone enjoys seeing these. I have a lot more crap I've saved over the years in folders and the like and occasionally I'll start showing it off here at "Elmo's Junction".